


How They Continue

by fineandwittie



Series: The Timeline of a Love Story [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Development, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:19:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4809446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The strain on the team dynamic doesn't quite clear up the way we all seem to want it to. Illya, Napoleon, and Gaby, in the field, work as a perfectly oiled machine. Off the field? They are three cogs moving independently, which occasionally grate on each other. </p><p>Illya finds out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got such lovely reviews after writing the first part of this that I had to continue. This will be part two of four.

Illya hates. He hates his family and he loves them, even if they are all dead or too far from him to matter anymore. He hates his training with the KGB and if he’s honest, he hates Russia. He hates himself, hates his height and his bulk and the chaos that lives inside his soul.

Most of all he hates the responses that Napoleon Solo pulls from him. Not the anger and irritation. Not the fond exasperation or the vague amusement. He hates the heat that rises under his skin at the innuendos that Solo throws around like grains of sand in an ocean tide. He hates the churning want that settles deep into his gut whenever Solo rolls up his shirt cuffs or unbuttons his collar or the one time they all somehow end up at the beach and the cut of Solo’s bathing trunks was absolutely indecent. The image of acres of sun kissed skin stretched smoothly over hard muscles. His bare chest, more defined and bulkier than Illya had ever dreamed, is speckled with corse black hair that trails down to the waistband of the bathing shorts that hug the curve of Solo’s ass and snug lovingly up to his privates, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. The sight is seared into Illya’s brain. He hates the hand that he touches himself with and the memories that surface, unbidden, in his mind.

He hates that perversion that seems to have settled into his very soul. Because lust? He could have dealt with lust, unnatural though it may be. But of course, it isn’t lust. 

He has done the unthinkable and fallen in love with a man. And not just any man. Napoleon Solo has actually been diagnosed as a serial womanizer. His lust for women is so pronounced a doctor thought it was too much. 

So, for as much as he hates himself, he also hates Solo. For the longing and the agony and the little bits of his soul that die every time Solo takes another woman to bed. But Illya is silent because it is not his business and he has no right to comment. Especially not out of twisted jealousy. 

Until the woman that Solo beds is Gaby.

He had thought that Solo hated Gaby, for the pain she’d caused him, for her betrayal. That day on the balcony all those months ago, when Solo had hissed poisonous words at her and his pulse had beat out of control, when Solo had driven Gaby back into the hotel and away from them with the force of his hatred and anger and pain. Solo had hated her then. But for all Illya had spent the intervening months watching Solo, he cannot tell when Solo stopped hating Gaby and began lusting after her. 

For his own part, he still watches her warily whenever she is near, wondering if this would be the time she would slap him again. She had mellowed with each passing and successful mission. And, by the time she fucks Solo, she seems comfortable with them both. 

It is a sunny Saturday morning. They’re still in London, have been for nearly a week, which is a rare occurrence. He makes up some excuse to go to Solo’s apartment early, hoping to catch him in his robe and sleep pants. Solo never seems to wear a shirt to sleep, nor does he throw one on under his robe. Illya is greedy for every glimpse of skin he can get. 

He knocks at the door and waits a beat. There’s a thump inside and he wonders if he’s woken Solo up. But when the door opens, it’s Gaby on the other side. She’s barefoot and barelegged, but otherwise engulfed in a man’s dress shirt. He blinks at it. It’s the blue that Solo had worn the last time Illya had seen him.

He is not sure what his face is doing, but whatever it is, it gets worse when Solo himself appears in the doorway behind Gaby, who is gaping at him. Solo is shirtless, suit-trousers hanging low off his hips. His zip is down, the flaps of his fly gaping around the bunch of his boxer-briefs. Illya swallows hard at the sight. What the two have been doing is clear. 

Solo blinks at him and something flashes through the American’s eyes. Something dark and hard and bitter. Illya does not understand it, but he turns and flees. 

Later, when he can think through the pain, he wonders if perhaps Solo found out. That he somehow knew about Illya’s corruption, his twisted and unnatural love. That he is doing it on purpose, maliciously, to cause Illya pain. He is considering this when Gaby finds him.

“Illya, it’s not what you think. What you saw this morning.” 

Illya nearly laughs because he cannot fathom that it could be anything else, but it’s none of his business anyway. He can no right to dictate what Solo can and cannot do. He stays silent instead, watching her with blank eyes.

She sighs and sits across the table from him. He’s seated at an outdoor cafe, nursing an espresso. 

“Look. I know it looked like Solo and I slept together. We didn’t. He still hates me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make amends with him for what I did in Rome. I…I don’t think he realizes how much I regret not telling you both the truth from the beginning. Maybe he doesn’t care. Solo is…not a good man, I don’t think. He’s beautiful and charming and witty. He’s very good at his job, the consummate professional when he needs to be, and a talented actor. But…he’s not a good man. Under all those masks and smirks and pretty lies, I don’t think there is anything at all. He’s…a facade. Without anything genuine underneath.”

Illya stares at her, bewilderment clear on his face. If Gaby thinks so very little of Solo, why…?

“He’s a good partner because he’s a good spy, but I don’t have to like him to work well with him. And I didn’t sleep with him. I know a couple of girls in London and I got drunk at a party last night. Solo's was the only number that I could remember. He picked me up, took me to his apartment because I apparently wasn’t coherent enough to give him my address, and gave me a shirt to wear to sleep. He’s a good eight or nine inches taller than me, so i suppose he figured it would be more like a dress. He wasn’t wrong. Your knocking woke me and I answered the door before I realized that I wasn’t at home. Solo was apparently in the middle of dressing. He asked me why I didn’t call my boyfriend to pick me up. I didn’t understand that he was referring to you until I saw his face when you left. You looked…god, Illya, you looked devastated. Completely gutted. And Solo was livid. I’ve never seen him like that. It was different from the balcony. That day it was hot, shamed rage. He was…a wounded animal lashing out. But this morning…I’m not sure if I can even describe it to you. It was…cold. So desperately cold I thought I might get burned by it. His voice was like liquid nitrogen. And his eyes…they were frigid, empty, so starkly hollow. He looked like he wanted to crack me open and rip out my heart because he thought it belonged to you. He said…awful things. He always says awful things. But this was different. More like that moment in Rome, by the fountain when he told you to take it like a pussy. Only…” She shakes her head. “Illya, I don’t know what’s wrong with him or what upset you so much, but I know it wasn’t because of me. I don’t know if it was something to do with the idea of Solo and I together or not, but I wanted you to know the truth. The two of you need to work out whatever this is. You work so well together in the field and we can’t afford to jeopardize that. Fix it.”

She takes a deep breath and nods before muttering, “I am very hungover, so I hope this made sense.” So saying, she rises and walks away. Illya sits there, staring at absolutely nothing for a very long moment. 

Gaby is wrong, of course. All she ever saw of Solo was the important looking suit. She is still the Chop Shop Girl that Solo lied to and rescued from East Berlin. Illya is certain she will never be anything more than that with Solo. She can’t seem to help it. Whenever he is near or mentioned, she gets mulish and defensive, a child trying to prove she is an adult. Illya shakes his head.

The picture they painted shouted sex, but without that image in his mind, the idea that the two would sleep together is impossible. So why then is Solo angry?

Illya crushes the tiny flare of hope the flickers in his chest and rises, dropping a few coins to the table. He is a scant few blocks from Solo’s apartment still, so he returns there.


	2. Chapter 2

Solo opens at the first knock. His face is emotionless, an empty smirk playing at his mouth. There is a brief flicker of surprise in his eyes. “Come to collect your pound of flesh? I didn’t fuck her, you know.”

Illya blinks at the vulgarity, something that Solo rarely indulges in. He opens his mouth and, unthinking, speaks Russian. “I know that now. Gaby found me and told me so.”

Solo’s lip curls and his eyes chill a fraction. He doesn’t move from the doorway. Illya stands in the hall. “Well, then you know that your woman’s virtue is safe from me. What are you doing here, Peril?”

The nickname, usually spoken with such affection, is a sneer. Illya flinches. “She is not my woman. She is her own woman.”

“Girlfriend, then.”

Illya shakes his head, eyes narrowing. “No. She is not that either.” He says, and pushes his way into the room. He snaps the door shut behind him and turns to stare at Solo. Solo, for his part, is staring back, expression guarded and body tense. “Gaby is a good woman. She is smart and resourceful and a very good agent. She is pretty and strong and just a little naive.”

With each word he speaks, Solo’s expression empties. His posture tenses, to the point of pain. “I do not need to hear you give me a laundry list of Gaby Teller’s good qualities.”

Illya snorts, momentarily distracted from his inner turmoil, his fear, his slowly growing hope. “I think you do. The two of you need work out your differences. One of these days your…antagonism is going to get one of us killed. Gaby is sorry for her betrayal. You both have skewed perceptions of each other. I am…saddened by your continual and purposeful blindness to each other. She told me today what she thinks of you. I wanted to slap her, to see if it would make her see sense.”

Solo cocks an eyebrow, though Illya can see confusion hiding in his eyes. “Didn’t take you for the kind of man who’d hit a woman, Kuryakin.”

Illya sighs. “Cowboy, Gaby thinks that you’re a series of masks with nothing underneath. That you’re little more than what your file claims. She cannot seem to see passed the snark and sarcasm. She’s wrong and I don’t know how to make her see correctly. But you aren’t helping. And if this gets either of you killed, I will personally strangle the other with my bare hands.”

Solo blinks at him. Swallows. “Excuse me?”

“You are a good man. I know you are. Gaby is wrong.”

“I’m…” Solo chokes a little. “I’m a good man? Illya, don’t be an idiot. I’m a criminal who was blackmailed into becoming a spy. I’m a thief, who is sometimes a whore. And I have the moral compass of a Whitechapel drunk.”

It is Illya’s turn to blink. “That…you…No. That is not right. You are the best of men. Napoleon…Yes, you are a thief. You’ll aways be a thief. Don’t think I don’t notice when you lift things from our targets or the guests at galas, because I do. But that doesn’t make you a bad person. You’re a talented actor, yes, and you…wear the mask of the playboy more often than I’d like, but underneath it, you are kind. You are…loyal and trustworthy and honorable. You stopped in the middle of a firefight to retrieve my father’s watch for me. You burned that disk so that I would not have to return to Moscow empty-handed, while my superiors found out that the Americans had the disk after all. Even though you’d already told your handler that you had it. Even though Sanders is a horrible man and could have done…anything to you. Including having you executed for treason. You’ve saved my life a hundred times over in the passed few months and even last night, you went out and picked up Gaby from that party. You made sure she was safe and you gave her a place to stay. There is nothing you can say to convince me that you are not an honorable man, Napoleon.”

Solo’s face twisted in a mask of self-loathing. He laughed. It was a bitter, festered sound. Illya felt bile rise in his throat. “Nothing? Nothing, Illya? Well, how about this, then? I dream of fucking you. One of the reasons that I hate Gaby so much is because she gets to have you. I see it sometimes behind my eyelids when I try to sleep. Her tiny hands skating across your skin. She’s over a foot shorter than you. You must have to pick her up to fuck her or she rides you, because it would never work otherwise. Sometimes I wonder how you fit inside her. Mostly I wonder how you’d fit inside me. What you’d taste like on my tongue. How you’d feel in my hands. I think I’d let you do almost anything you wanted to me, just to get the chance to have you, like that. I’m one of those kinds of men, Kuryakin. Still so confident in my goodness? But oh, it’s not just a sexual deviance. I can feel it down to my bones. It’s in my brain and under my skin and probably stamped on my soul. Property of Illya Kuryakin, the KGB’s best, who’d probably rather punch a faggot like me than look at one. Am I still the best of men?”

He’s panting, his chest heaving. His cheeks burn with shame and his eyes are glittering, not with their earlier malice, but with unshed tears. Illya stares at him for a long moment and he seems to deflate. Collapsing in on himself without even moving a muscle. His eyes drop to the floor, unable to meet Illya’s.

“Yes.”

Solo flinches. “What?” It’s a hoarse whisper.

Illya laughs. “Yes, Napoleon. You are still the best of men. And…because that is so than maybe…if you feel that way, perhaps it is not so wrong as I was taught.”

Solo frowns, eyes coming up again. “Because I’m a pervert, it mustn’t be a bad thing? Illya…that sounds crazy.”

Illya laughs again, more genuine this time. “Love makes people do crazy things.”

There is a moment of silence as Napoleon stares at him. “Love?” It’s barely more than a breath.

“Have I ever told you why I watch Gaby whenever she enters a room? Why I am…constantly aware of her presence?”

Napoleon jerks his head, looking as though he’s been slapped. The tears are hovering in his eyes again. 

“The first night, in Rome, she slapped me. Twice. And then attacked me. The noise, which I’m sure you probably heard, even with all the sex you were having, was drunk Gaby using me to destroy the hotel room. She tackled me, breaking the coffee table with my body.” He wrinkles his nose. “It was very…unpleasant. She is so tiny that I was afraid if I tried to stop her, I would break her bones. I am convinced that she will do this again at some point. I watch her, in case she decides that today is that day.”

Napoleon gapes at him.

“You, on the other hand…I watch you because you are beautiful. Such grace and elegance. I cannot see the son of an Irish janitor in you at all. Or the shadow of the soldier. You are the thief. It is like watching a ballet. All precision and perfect motion. The day we went to the beach I thought I was having a medical emergency. You were…decadent. Indecent. I wanted to strip you out of that tiny bathing suit and expose every inch of your skin to the air and the water and the gazes of those people. But I also wanted to take the towel that you were laying on and wrap you up in it to hide you from all the hungry eyes that were staring at you. Every woman on the beach and at least two or three of the men were watching you greedily. I wanted to stop them from looking because I wanted to be the only one to see so much of you. And I was shamed.”

Napoleon is gasping, like he can’t get his lungs to fill, and he sways on his feet, toward Illya. “Illya…god…please.”

Illya smiles and pulls Napoleon into his arms, pressing his fingers to the American’s irregular pulse until it quiets, steadies. He thinks perhaps he doesn’t have to hate himself so much.

Because Napoleon Solo quiets the chaos in his soul. Illya thinks that, with Napoleon, his height and his bulk might not matter so much because Napoleon is tall too and bulkier than him. He thinks he can learn to love the responses that Napoleon pulls from him. When Napoleon brings a hand up to bury in his hair and pulls their mouths together, Illya melts into the kiss and doesn’t think anything much after that.

But he does know that in this? They will both be fine. Better than fine. They will be perfect. But only together.


End file.
